As a person who has always been fascinated by all things Mediaeval—and who rather regrets never giving Mediaeval History a serious go in tertiary education—I'm always looking for Mediaeval literature to read and add to my collection. One work that has been on my to-read list for several years is a certain chanson de geste called the Song of Roland. There were a few reasons for this: it's a foundational piece of Mediaeval literature, a work that allegedly contributed to the shaping of the French language as we know it, and a work that helped solidify the concept of chivalry. Also Roland has been my top choice of name for a theoretical future son for years, and I wanted to know more about the cultural history of the name and what sort of connotations (and/or baggage) the narrative assigns it. This year I finally got around to reading it.
Usually I find most of my books in second-hand bookstores, but if I've been looking for something for a few years and have had no success finding it (or if I know it's super niche or I get swayed by a particularly nice edition or cover) then I may go out of my way to purchase a brand new copy. When it comes to old works in different or archaic languages I find this particularly daunting. Translation and commentary are, as far as I see it, foundational in shaping a reader's understanding and enjoyment of translated works and works from a different historical context. Translation alone is, I think, a delicate art that carries a great deal of responsibility. As with all written work, the reader places a lot of trust in any author. You surrender your time and your attention into the hands of an author and trust that they will take you on a meaningful journey. The translator has an extra layer of duty here. Their responsibility is not only to the reader--to make sure the journey is meaningful and makes sense--but also to the original author--to make sure that they represent and honour the original narrative by presenting it in a way that is as close to the author's original vision and voice and intent as possible. Finding a good translation is thus very important. As to how one defines and identifies a good translation... I have no idea. I am fluent in exactly one language and so am utterly at the mercy of the translators and whatever other readers recommend. When the time came to decide on a version of the Song of Roland there were two names that regularly came up in my research: Dorothy Sayers, whose translation of The Divine Comedy I have and am presently reading, and some guy called Simon Gaunt. Because I was already familiar with Sayers I decided to go with her version. But then I noticed that the Sayers translation was more expensive than the Gaunt translation and the Gaunt translation came with two other "poems of Charlemagne". So I ended up going with Simon Gaunt and Karen Pratt's The Song of Roland and Other Poems of Charlemagne, and boy am I glad that I did!
Having read through the whole book now I can't really say anything as to how good the translations were. My 12th century French is as lacking as my 12th century Occitanian (sp?). The experience of reading was quite clear and easy to understand, but overall The Song of Roland did not evoke much in me. There were a lot of interesting historical details and tid-bits, but I did not connect to the characters or their conflicts. I do intend to read it again one day, though. I imagine it is the sort of thing that is better on a second reading. At the time of purchase I did not think much of the other two poems in the book and had low expectations for them both. I assumed they would be far inferior and did not expect to end up reading them all the way through. The Song of Roland was clearly the main star and they were just tacked on to flesh out the page count or perhaps make that star shine brighter. In the end, though, I have to say I found The Song of Roland to be, in my experience, the weakest read of the three. The third poem, Charlemagne's Journey to Jerusalem and Constantinople was far more amusing and felt reminiscent of something one might find in Bocaccio's Decameron. But for me the star ended up being the second entry in the book: a poem of some 2000 lines called Daurel and Beton.
Daurel and Beton, or, The Romance of Daurel and Beton
Where can I begin to explain this little piece of Occitanian literature and how it fascinates me?
Let me just allow it to introduce itself:
Would you all like to hear a noble song?
Pay attention, please, and listen to the story
Of a powerful French duke and of Count Guy,
Of the minstrel, Daurel, and the boy, Beton,
(Daurel and Beton, Lines 1-4 translated by Gaunt & Pratt, 2016)
This opening introduces the four main players in this narrative. The lines that follow go on to show the moment where our French duke, Bovis, makes a pact with Count Guy--arguably the inciting incident of the whole narrative. We are told that Bovis is wealthy and influential while Guy is not, yet the two men are the best of friends. So much so that they decide to make a pact before witnesses, naming themselves as each other's heirs. From the beginning the poem also informs us very bluntly that Guy is evil and scheming and is going to betray Bovis. There is not much subtlety here, but seeing how it all unfolds is still a fascinating journey.
A brief summary
For the first part of the poem Bovis goes from strength to strength, earning accolades, recognition, more wealth and status, and--seemingly the final straw for Guy--the hand of the emperor Charlemagne's sister in marriage. Along the way Guy and Bovis come upon a minstrel by the name of Daurel, who has a wife and two sons. He impresses them with his skill, accompanies them and seems to become a friend and follower to them both, earning his own assortment of gifts and titles. One such gift is a castle, given to him by Bovis. In theory this gift would increase Daurel's status in the feudal world, turning him from a minstrel into a lord. Life seems good between the three of them, until Guy tries to pressure Emenjart, Bovis' wife and Charlemagne's sister, to sleep with him. When she rejects him he tells her she will regret it. Ermenjart tells Bovis what happened, but Bovis does not believe her, certain that Guy would never do such a thing.
A son called Beton is born to Bovis and Ermenjart. That same night a third son is born to Daurel and his wife. Daurel brings the boy to Bovis and asks him to be the godfather. Bovis names him Daurelet. Bovis and Guy go out on a hunt together and Guy uses the opportunity to kill Bovis. It's a very dramatic scene, though Bovis shows himself to be too trusting of Guy even at the moment of his death. He honours their pact by telling Guy to marry Ermenjart and treat her kindly and look after Beton as if he were his own son. Guy has no intention of honouring these requests.
Bovis is buried and Guy gives Charlemagne a gift of money to buy both his sister's hand in marriage and his silence on the matter of Guy murdering Bovis. Ermenjart does not want to marry Guy, but Charlemagne forces her to. She has young Beton smuggled off to a wet nurse on an island so that Guy will not have any opportunity to harm him, but it does not take long for Guy to figure out where Beton is being kept hidden. Daurel is with Guy at the time and overhears the location of Beton's keeping. He rides ahead and fetches Beton before Guy can, taking him back to his own castle to be kept safe and raised alongside his own sons. Unfortunately for Daurel, Guy is no idiot and arrives at the castle soon after. He threatens to burn it down unless they give him Bovis' son. Daurel's wife convinces him to give Guy their own Daurelet in exchange. Daurel does so (interestingly this is the one instance in the entire poem of a husband listening to his wife), asking Guy to swear he will do no harm. Guy swears as much, but as soon as Daurel hands the child over he smashes him against a pillar, killing him. Distraught, Daurel takes the body to Ermenjart and shows her that he sacrificed his own son to keep Beton safe. The boy is buried beside Bovis. Daurel returns home and prepares a ship so that he may take Beton far away and raise him in safety until he is old enough to return with his own army and avenge Bovis. Daurel's wife, so distraught at the loss of her son and her husband's departure, flings herself off a tower and dies. Daurel arrives in a Middle Eastern land (Babylon or Egypt?) and the emir of that land and his wife agree to take Beton into their care when Daurel tells them Beton is his own son and that his wife has died (which Daurel does not realise at the time is true).
Guy quickly learns that Beton is in fact still alive and Daurel has taken him away to be raised in secret. Furious, Guy locks Ermenjart in a tower and makes an enemy of the inhabitatns of Daurels' castle. Daurel's two remaining sons defend his castle from Guy, waiting for the day when he and Beton return.
Beton grows into a talented and handsome child, highly favoured by the emir and his court. Fortune favours him, he has a way with horses, and he is a born leader. So much so that the emir suspects Daurel is not his real father. Daurel makes sure Beton is trained in music and in warfare, and in these exchanges it is clear that Beton adores Daurel. One day Daurel challenges Beton to a joust (suggesting that Daurel himself learnt such arts at some point when he was with Guy and Bovis). Beton bests him, and this proves to Daurel that he's ready to challenge Guy. Before they can depart, the emir's kingdom is challenged by an enemy king who arrives with a ridiculous number of warriors. The emir is afraid to face him, fully aware that he is outnumbered, but Beton dons the emir's armour and rides out on his warhorse. He challenges two champions of the king and bests them in sight of everyone. This breaks the morale of the enemy king's army, and they depart peacefully. The emir no longer believes that Beton has any chance of being Daurel's child. In the city square he interrogates Daurel about Beton's true parentage. Daurel tells him that he is Bovis' son, and asks if the emir will lend them some men and supplies to help them reclaim Beton's birthright and avenge his father's murder. The emir agrees, and also promises his daughter in marriage to Beton.
Daurel and Beton sail back to their homeland with the men and supplies the emir gives them. They disguise themselves as travelling entertainers and go to Guy. They entertain him with a recounting of how he betrayed Bovis. He realises who they are during this, and strikes Daurel. But Beton strikes Guy at the same moment, protecting Daurel and chopping of Guy's sword-hand. They overpower Guy and capture his knights. Daurel reunites with his sons. The next day they all head off to Bovis' old castle, where Beton takes his rightful place as its Duke. They execute Guy and Beton is reunited with his mother, Ermenjart.
Beton,
having reclaimed his birthright and avenged his father, still has one more enemey to deal with. He sends three
messengers to Charlemagne to inform him that he will not show him
deference and wants compensation for Charlemagne's complicit role in
Guy's treachery. If Charlemagne refuses, Beton will fight him as long he
is capable of doing so. Charlemagne responds rather ominously:
'My friend,' he says, 'you are a very brave man,
Coming here to threaten me in this way.'
Some thoughts and reflections on the narrative
I have seen it said that Daurel and Beton is not as refined or as complex as The Song of Roland. I suppose in a lot of ways that is true, though I do not have the academic knowledge or experience to say precisely why. Daurel and Beton certainly felt rough and unpolished in a lot of ways, like an early draft with a lot of potential but a lot of things that still needed figuring out and refining. And yet, there was a richness to it as well. The characters and their conflicts in this narrative felt, to me, much more interesting than those that populated The Song of Roland. It is a sort of family drama that touches on many themes: loyalty, jealousy, friendship, materialism, sacrifice, betrayal, vengeance. And these just the themes that are immediately relatable to a contemporary reader. There is also a heavy focus on such Mediaeval concerns as feudal allegiance, noble birth, the importance of gift-giving, and honour. Beton is born to rule, and the narrative does not allow you to doubt it. And yet, it is a minstrel, a person born to a normal life that raises him and steers Beton toward his greatness.
From the get-go, the thing that intrigued me most about this poem is the
presence of Daurel, a minstrel. He's not a side character for comic
relief or eve a narrator, but is a pivotal player in the story. A sort
of every-man (though one with a lot of creative skill) who finds himself
caught between two powerful men, Guy and Bovis, and their interpersonal
conflict. Yet he's not just a passive observer or supporter either.
Over the course of the narrative he seems to proves himself to be what
Bovis actually needed in a friend, in contrast to Guy. He risks his life
and his own happiness and prosperity to protect and raise Beton. This I think is the kernel for why this story really facsinates me. On
the one hand it is very feudal and medieval in its worldview. Beton is
born to lead, and the story does not allow you to doubt it. But all the
same, throughout the entire narrative's course, Daurel a 'base'
minstrel, proves himself noble and knightly as well, and is instrumental
in ensuring justice and the natural order are preserved. Constantly Daurel proves himself to be nobler than Guy. Guy, born a noble and a lord and therefore, according to feudal view, more worthy of ruling and leading than Daurel
could ever be. Would Beton ever have defeated Guy without the tutelage and guidance that Daurel gave him? The narrative seems to suggest he simply would have been killed on that island without Daurel's brave intervention. The story of Daurel and Beton seems to have elements of critique against feudalism in
some ways, while simultaneously proclaiming its values.
Another curiosity which I think ties into this possibility of critique is that everyone seems to know that Guy was the one who killed Bovis as soon as Guy returns from the hunt. Ermenjart knows it. Daurel knows it. The men who
accompanied Guy and Bovis on the hunt know it. Charlemagne knows it. Guy's guilt is never doubted or questioned, but nobody takes him to task for his crimes. Why?
My assumption is that
Guy must be the most powerful person around after Bovis' death, and is surrounded by strong allies who gain from Bovis' death and who he knows will defend him. Everyone who faces loss because of Bovis' death is too weak to challenge him, and when
Charlemagne takes his side everyone really knows they're powerless to bring
justice until someone of equal or greater status (Bovis' own son) comes along and removes that power from him.
There were also so many unique and memorable moments in this poem. A betrayal framed as a hunting accident (nothing unique in itself), with Guy's unrelenting cruelty to his best friend and the curious detail of the victim asking the assailant to eat a part of his heart. Charlemagne turning from a man who values courage and loyalty to one who will sell his own sister for gold. Said sister throwing her wedding ring into the fire in protest of her new marriage. The minstrel sacrificing his own son to save his lord's. The minstrel's oldest son defending their land in his father's absence from the traitorous character and seeking vengeance for his murdered brother. Beton being a veritable Disney princess who could not only spin a tune and has Fortune's own luck, but also has a way with the emir's horse. Daurel and a grown Beton returning to their homeland disguised as entertainers to get close to their enemy, revealing themselves to him by recounting his betrayal in song.
Just recounting these moments excites me and gets my imagination spinning. While reading Daurel and Beton I couldn't help but feel it was a sort of classic Heroe's Journey narrative where the bulk of the story is told through the mentor's point-of-view.
I also can't help but wonder if Daurel was a sort of self-insert?
The manuscript
Unlike the Song of Roland, there's only one extant version of this story from a 14th century manuscript now known as Recueil de poésies provençales (Collection of Provençal poetry), that belonged to the Didot family. After a bit of research I was very excited to find an entry for it in the Les Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge (ARLIMA - The Archives of Mediaeval Literature) which led me to scans of the original manuscript available through the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
The manuscript is speculated to have been compiled by Pons Fabre d’Uzès and Falquet de Romans, although the specific authorship of Daurel and Beton is unknown as far as I can tell, as is the intended ending of the narrative. There are a handful of doodles to be found in the margins of its pages (94r, 97v, 101r, 105v, 108v). The images all very clearly show scenes from the poem, with three showing castles, one showing a horse and the final image a ship with two people on it, one of whom seems to be holding a harp above their head. These delightful little inclusions really humanise the person who wrote these words down, and make me think they must have been quite excited about the story they were putting to paper.
The illustration that appears on folio 94r . This may represent Ermenjart while Guy has her locked up in the tower, or perhaps Daurel's wife in the moment before she flings herself from the tower? The text next to it would obviously be the main clue, but I am not able to decipher it without going through Paul Meyer's transcription of the manuscript line-by-line, which I might like to do someday but do not presently have the capacity for.
At present I am fixated on seeking out all of the available research on this narrative. I have made a brief list below of some I have already read. The ARLIMA page provides a comprehensive list of related articles, most of which are in French or German. The seminal work on the piece seems to be the very first transcription of it done by Paul Meyer in 1880, which also has a rather lengthy introduction and analysis of the poem. Ah, that I could read French! I'm going to do my best to figure out Meyer's words with the help of online translators, but it is going to be a slow process, and until then there is much that remains mysterious to me about this poem.
There is so much that I find fascinating about the story of Daurel and Beton. Was this a well-known narrative that someone was putting to paper for the first time? Was it just some writer's attempt at their own original story? Was it a
self-insert power fantasy with Daurel as the author's persona? Whatever
it was, I think it's a darn cool story that deserves a bit more
attention. I'm quite crushed that the ending may forever remain a
mystery. But while it may forever remain unfinished, I firmly believe that the themes, characters and dramatic moments that the narrative has to offer in its current state would provide an excellent foundation for a retelling aimed at a 21st century audience, especially, perhaps, with a low fantasy setting wrapped in a strong coating of historical Languedoc inspiration.
Sources:
- Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge page for Daurel et Beton. https://www.arlima.net/ad/daurel_et_beton.html (Accessed 18 December 2023)
- Bibliothèque nationale de France: Département des Manuscrits. Recueil de poésies provençales. 14th century. (Listed as Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, nouvelles acquisitions françaises, 4232, f. 76v-112v in the ARLIMA entry for Daurel and Beton)
- Gaunt, S & Pratt, K. 2016. The Song of Roland and Other Poems of Charlemagne. The Oxford University Press: United Kingdom.
- Meyer, Paul. 1880. Daurel et Beton : chanson de geste provençale. Available at: https://archive.org/details/daureletbetonch00meye/page/n5/mode/2up (Accessed 29 December 2023)
Research/papers listed for Daurel and Beton on ARLIMA that I have read so far and found enlightening:
- Adler, Alfred, « A note on Daurel et Beton », Romance Philology, 3:2-3, 1949-1950, p. 160-167. [jstor.org]
- Sinclair, Finn E., « The power of the gift: desire and substitution in Daurel et Beton », The Modern Language Review, 99:4, 2004, p. 902-914. DOI: 10.2307/3738503
- Sinclair, Finn E., « Blood, sacrifice and the integrity of the body in Daurel et Beton », Proceedings of the 9th National Conference on Occitan Language and Literature, Royal Holloway, University of London (Wednesday 29 March, 2000), éd. Michael J. Routledge, Egham, University of London, 2000.
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